Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: XelosUchiha on <08-22-11/1013:32>
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Are there any rules anywhere for the Stock Market in Shadowrun? One of my players has been reading all of the supplements such as sixth world almanac and seattle 2072 and has come to me with his plan to invest his shadowrun money using his fake SIN into the stock market. He has even printed out a list and charts detailing all of his stock purchases and the reason he should be making money (this guy is an economist irl so its tough to argue with him). Does it say anywhere in the book anything about buy stock or even purchasing subsidiaries of corporations to make money on the side?
If i just let him go, i know that within a few game months he'll be making hundreds of thousands of nuyen.
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I don't know of any charts but thats not to say someone else mightn't.
Personally, I'd make him do a Logic + Knowledge: Financial Markets check to see how well his investments do; unless his character has the ability to pull this off, I wouldn't let the player do it no matter how good the plans based on his real world knowledge are.
Then b) the moment I didn't like how much money he was making, rule that the law have found out its a fake SIN and have confiscated the funds. Or he invested in a company that was lying through their teeth and have just crashed and lost him tons. Or, some other fairly merciless way, take the money off him. I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to find a reason to do so either what with the difficulties of being a professional criminal using a fake ID to actively invest in the stock market. Sooner or later he'll slip (particularly if he uses the SIN he runs under).
There is also a ton of harassment that can come with the territory, particularly depending on how heavily he's playing the market (messages from your broker requiring instant attention during the middle of combat would be annoying I imagine). Extortion and blackmail are both on the table.
However, if you really don't want him to do this, I'd just say "I want a game about Shadowrunning, not Corporate Trading. If you do this, it will be a side thing gaining limited benefits. If you can't stick by that, then please don't do it at all."
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With all his enhancements he has a Logic 9 plus he has Knowledge: Economics, Finance, Business, and Brokerage. And then if he magically raises his Logic to its maximum he rolls massive successes on all of his checks.
If you've seen the movie Limitless, that's what this mage is like. That is a good idea though, having a big brokerage deal come down in the middle of a run or something like that. Or some other way I can make him choose.
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I don't know of the markets and buying selling per se but I do know in the old Corp Shadowfiles and Corporate Download it does have the rules for tracking the markets and the effects that the runners action have on them if that helps at all. I am pretty sure they are OOP though, so you might need to search for them in the usual places.
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To be honest I doubt you could get away with making huge amounts. Once he starts to make a lot companies will start looking at who this trader is, and a fake SIN won't hold up to scrutiny if someone starts doing large numbers of background checks.
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Welp... if the guy has paid for the logic and skills, I can't blame him for wanting to use them. That said - either apply a large threshold for successes, or start making it an opposed check against someone else fairly hyper-smart, and that will reduce the effects of his giant success rolls. It makes sense as well. Playing the market is not easy.
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The first thing you have to look at is he investing for long term gains or is he trying for large amount of profit quickly. If he is buying and holding large cap stocks, highly rated bonds, etc, that is pretty safe, but those kind of things move slowly. Even if he is good at it he would likely be making 10-15% on his money per year. If he could make twenty he should stop running and manage a hedge fund.
Trying to make larger amounts of money faster means taking larger positions in riskier stocks. If you invest in a small company, say a biotech company, and they have one product come out that is huge in their field the value of that stock is going to skyrocket. But by the same token, if you take a large position and the company ends up second to market with their product, or six months later it turns out the product causes chronic constipation and suddenly no one is buying it then the stock is suddenly worth pennies on the dollar. Throw in the fact that corporate raiders in shadowrun use assault rifles and things can get really, really volatile. Nobody picks right all the time because there are unknown and unpredictable factors at work.
Also, there is the constant risk that investments under a fake SIN will be seized if the SIN is cracked. To avoid this he is going to have to be frequently moving money to multiple new and expensive SINs, or using black market services that will take a piece of the action as well. Either way it cuts into the profits.
Is he day trading? If so then he basically doesn't have time to be a runner. Those guys work 60-80 hours a week with extreme levels of stress an most of them loose money in the end.
So I guess what I am saying is that I would allow him to make a reasonable return on money he invests. Don't let him print money up from nothing, however, it just doesn't work that way. No matter how smart the guy is a part time investor with no staff picking his own stocks off of publicly available research isn't going to have money falling from the sky. He can either play it safe, and maybe double his money every five years as long as there isn't a recession, or play it risky, but then there will be times when he has big scores and times when he looses his ass.
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I've had a few characters I've played and a couple I GMed that tinkered in the stock markets. The first problem was the SIN as people are mentioning.
Nearly everyone came up with the same solution to the SIN problem. For "low level" investing, enough earnings to keep a fairly simple lifestyle (up to and including Medium) going nigh-indefinately, a good fake SIN was enough since it was through legitimate or fairly legitimate investment groups/clubs headed up by someone else. The "big stuff" like selling short on the corp they were about to hit in some spectacular way thus causing a stock dip or putting some money into the corp they just handed over the revolutionary software source code to, was handled by simply having a legit contact at a high level that did the investing for them for a cut of the proceeds. We all learned to just keep our own names out of it and use legit contacts to do it and accept the "wow we made 25% on the investment, but 10 of it went to our ID Shield" as a cost of doing business. Beyond that, one of my earlier GMs came up with a randomized chart for investments not doing as well as expected or doing better than expected to simulate other factors outside the normal operation of the markets (other shadowruns, rate change announcements and the like). The chart leaned slightly towards investments doing better tha expected to simulate that the markets do tend to tilted towards "success" slightly.
The third "type" of investing we tinkered with was "background investing" and "promotional shares." In the first case the character had some legit non-voting investments that brought in smallish sums to cover some basic expenses and simple equipment replacements. In the second, the character owned some promotional stock in the company ought with promotional materials (think the old Camel Cash RJ Reynolds put out for about 15 or 20 years but instead of RJR corp script ot was RJR promo stock) and could replace simple items with branded merchandise from the issuing company for free (for instance, I had a rigger who was famous for destroying things like radios and pocket secretaries but he always had a Camel one standing by as a replacement). It was mostly a fun little character quirk to add in and didn't really require any GM policing except to say "yeah, you can get one of those for free" or "no, that item isn't in their promo vaults."
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Another thought I had, let him buy a house rule positive quality called "Investment Wizard" or something similar. You could base the cost on Trust Fund. For 20 BP you have a High lifestyle. Maybe for 10 BP you have a Middle Lifestyle. You have to spend a certain amount of time managing your funds, and if you are cut off from Matrix access for a significant period (mission inside the ACHE, working a job in the Gobi desert and there just aint no damn wireless, etc) it might cost you some money.
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There could be some fun plot hooks in letting the PC play an investor. The Cat alludes to shorting the stock of a company the runner is about to hit to profit off of the resulting drop in stock price (à la the villain in Casino Royale). If the run is a success then it could trigger an investigation by a government regulator wondering why the PC (or the SINner he recruited to front the trade) had such remarkable timing and insight.
Or, coming from the other direction, the PC gets wind of a shadow op targeting his favorite start-up company. Their lead researcher is about to be kidnapped or their primary factory/facility is about to be bombed just as it is coming online, prompting the PC to intervene as an unexpected white knight. (Or, if he's lazy, switch his investment from long to short, which leads to the original scenario of being investigated.) Maybe the PC has to lay out some cash of his own to hire his team to back him up as he protects his investment, or promise them a cut of the profits. I would let him run with his plan, but remind him (through gameplay) that there is no easy money to be made.
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There could be some fun plot hooks in letting the PC play an investor. The Cat alludes to shorting the stock of a company the runner is about to hit to profit off of the resulting drop in stock price (à la the villain in Casino Royale). If the run is a success then it could trigger an investigation by a government regulator wondering why the PC (or the SINner he recruited to front the trade) had such remarkable timing and insight.
of course, that's assuming that the investment is pretty large, there are millions of reasons why people will sell their stock, and only massive transactions "just in time" would garner any attention.
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of course, that's assuming that the investment is pretty large, there are millions of reasons why people will sell their stock, and only massive transactions "just in time" would garner any attention.
It's Shadowrun. It will happen if the GM wants it to happen. Whatever is fun and interesting will usually prevail over what's most realistic.
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I had an idea of including things like this in my first campaign. Big mistake. My own experience was too limited to have put it through properly.
So, I had them deal with some major consequences, and the group had to steal a cow.
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I had an idea of including things like this in my first campaign. Big mistake. My own experience was too limited to have put it through properly.
So, I had them deal with some major consequences, and the group had to steal a cow.
why a cow?
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Well, they decided that Megacorporations weren't the only ones that could destroy other companies to drive up market prices. And they crashed the stock on the wrong company.
It was a Mafia front, and the group's Mafia Contact, who only spoke in a whisper before, called them up, freaking out, and they had to steal a cow.
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Well, they decided that Megacorporations weren't the only ones that could destroy other companies to drive up market prices. And they crashed the stock on the wrong company.
It was a Mafia front, and the group's Mafia Contact, who only spoke in a whisper before, called them up, freaking out, and they had to steal a cow.
Am I missing something? o.O' was the mafia front a cow business? or does cow stand for Company Operated (insert word with a W)
Lol that's an awesome thought, I'm going to name something kick ass C.O.W. :D Plus 1 for you for making me think of that. xD
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No, it was a cow. The meanest, nastiest cow around. Cow #42 with an Agricultural Company that the group bankrupted, and it was being audited.
The cow had, however, a deep, dark, illegal secret.
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You guys have given me a whole lot of good ideas here.
I think what i'm going to do is an extended test, something like (20, 1 month) to show that he has to have a long term commitment and needs to net 20 hits before he makes a profit. Then I can just scale how much he makes by how many months it takes him to make it. If he gets it down quick, i'll say he went for the big bang for his buck, came out lucky, made a lot of money and all the drama that goes with that. The longer it takes him, i'll say he played it safe and slowly raised a small sum. I think that might be a good way to do it.
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Now, to taunt you even further: What was the secret of Cow #42???
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Now, to taunt you even further: What was the secret of Cow #42???
Her brother was a chicken?
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Lol that's an awesome thought, I'm going to name something kick ass C.O.W. :D Plus 1 for you for making me think of that. xD
Anyone read/remember that parody of all RPGs, H.O.L? It's pan-galactic government was named Confederacy of Worlds, or C.O.W.
Now, to taunt you even further: What was the secret of Cow #42???
Sure, I'll bite: What was the secret of Cow #42? And, was it specifically Cow #42 (instead of, say, #4 or pi or the square root of -1 for instance) out of homage to the great super computer Deep Thought (I think) from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series? And finally, a cow heist has great potential for a run, mind if I plagiarize you?
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Sorry, forgot to mention on this forum: My personal random number generator is broken. Whenever I need to come up with some generic random number, it always comes up 42. Every. Time. Don't know why.
And go ahead, steal cows. The cost in beef alone is worth the risk and difficulty. Although, if your group is made up of a bunch of city folks like mine was, the sheer stupidity that can happen when dealing with livestock can be quite hilarious. (I learned a bit from my Uncle, who had a Dairy Farm before he switched to FankenCrops.).
And that's without the issue of dealing with the special nature of Cow #42.
I also have a story about Cab #42 and the Cabbie that owed a poker debt, and what happens when you critically fail a perception test. But that's for a different thread.
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Sorry, forgot to mention on this forum: My personal random number generator is broken. Whenever I need to come up with some generic random number, it always comes up 42. Every. Time. Don't know why.
What's six time nine?
Google's Calculator comes up with 42 here too (http://www.google.com/search?q=the+answer+to+life%2C+the+universe+and+everything&btnG=Search)
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Sorry, forgot to mention on this forum: My personal random number generator is broken. Whenever I need to come up with some generic random number, it always comes up 42. Every. Time. Don't know why.
What's six time nine?
Google's Calculator comes up with 42 here too (http://www.google.com/search?q=the+answer+to+life%2C+the+universe+and+everything&btnG=Search)
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
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Anyway, back on topic:
The Stock Market (real world & fictional) is about people's confidence in the business, nothing more, nothing less. If people believe in the business, they will buy stock in the business, else they will sell stock. This, of course, leads to speculators and others that use psychology to manipulate the market to their benefit.
Economy deals with the rules of Supply and Demand and how one affects the other and how different markets interact (Gas prices go up, cost of bread goes up). There is no "way" to predict a stock will rise or fall, no surefire method to make money off the stock market. If he wants to play the market in the game, have a bit of fun with him and have him hear about a job to run a job against a cookie company. Later on, have the run at the cookie company wind up causing the value of some of his stocks take a dive. ;)
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I've outright stated to my group that the Black Market price of Corporate Scrip is based on a variety of complex issues like stock performance, advertising, information posted on Black BBSes/Forums, and how well the corp is doing in Desert Wars.
The last confused them for a moment, then they shrugged and went, "Yeah, makes sense."
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I would suggest treating it as a Day Job and leaving it at that.
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Sorry, forgot to mention on this forum: My personal random number generator is broken. Whenever I need to come up with some generic random number, it always comes up 42. Every. Time. Don't know why.
What's six time nine?
Google's Calculator comes up with 42 here too (http://www.google.com/search?q=the+answer+to+life%2C+the+universe+and+everything&btnG=Search)
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
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I've thought of doing this many times as a player and a GM in several different systems. I've always stopped myself b/c I never wanted money to be as easy as a skill roll. I'm not playing Slots...The Dice Game after all.
I understand why you'd like to make it available for the character as he's spent all those build points on doing it. You're idea of stretching it out over months is a good idea. Just begin thinking about what you'd like to do if/when he glitches or rolls a critical glitch. My recommendation for the first result would just be that he loses all the money he staked. If the character critically glitches I would make him lose an additional 25% of the stake for each extra '1' over some set number.
For example, let's pretend we set the number at 3. Player has 10 dice for his roll (and I would NOT allow his spells to pump up the stat as we're talking about MONTHS of time here wherein he'd have to have it pumped up the ENTIRE TIME to matter. Moving on...player rolls.... (1,1,1,1,1,1,1,4,2,3). That's a definite critical glitch. Since he scored seven '1's that's 4 over 3. This means that he would lose double the amount he initially staked. This is all too easy in the investment world...ESPECIALLY if he short sells.
Course, he's a 'Runner. If he loses he can always dump his SIN. That just makes it more fun if whomever he owes money decides to find him and collect. :)
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While slightly outside the scope of the original question, Runners do have a good reason to own a very diverse stock portfolio and that's information gathering. They'll legitimately receive periodic reports on what the company is up to with info that doesn't generaly make it into common knowledge on the streets without needing a contact to find the info. Beyond that, if they manage to build up shares that have votes, they can gleen valuable intel from how they're courted and by whom for proxies on their votes. If they can manage to build up a signifigant amount of stock, in the whole percentages, either individually or through a closed investment group, they'll be able to pull in even more valuable intel. Situationally, they can also build up signifigant holdings in smaller businesses that have regular dealings with much larger ones, pulling information from there and even gain legitimate access to facilities they'd be barred from normally.
I forget which book it is, but there's also mentions of a "shadow exchange" for the SINless, which is very useful for dealing in the markets and gaining information access like the above.
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The best way Shadowrunners can build up a "Stock Portfolio" is to accept payment in Corporate Scrip, which has the shadow trade in such fluctuate due to the situation with the owning corp. So, if you're sitting on a pile of Ares Scrip and the corp just released some new upgrades for the Citymaster-Series, won a major Desert Wars battle, and is in the Urban Brawl finals, it's time to use that to get Nuyen or a shiny new toy on the black market!
However, another advantage of getting Stock is Stockholder Reports. Even the stuff disseminated to "Civilians" can have a lot of info that Shadowrunners might find useful. It also adds more legitimacy to that high-end "Bulletproof" SIN you have as your "Get the frag out of Dodge" back-up. After all, how likely is a criminal to be a shareholder in Ares, Winchester, Colt, Weapons World?
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Frankly, you don't need to be a stockholder to get a look at a shareholder report. It's Shadowrun folks. How easy do you think it would be to find on in the matrix? My opinion, a pretty simple task.
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Yeah, but when you pirate them, you also can't pirate the dividends. :P
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Yeah, but when you pirate them, you also can't pirate the dividends. :P
H A C K I N G
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Go ahead, hack a bank.
Let me know where to send the flowers.
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You don't hack the bank. You hack the stockholders 'email' account and make sure that you place a filter on their system to so you can have their directly deposited money...sent to your accounts. Course taht's not easy either. Just sayin' it's possible....just sayin'. :P
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Personally, my approach would be to use elements of the rules.
Buying a Lifestyle
A character can permanently buy a given lifestyle by making a payment equal to 100 months' upkeep. For example, ten million nuyen buys a permanent life of luxury. This sum represents investments, trust funds, and so on that can take care of payments.
So, basically you can create investment portfolio's that will give a return of 1% per month, with relative ease. That's a return of 12% per annum, which is in keeping with long-term investments. And, my preference would be to leave it at that. Why? Because this is SHADOWRUN, a game about maneuvering through the dark and grimy shadows of corporate/international politics. It's a game of professional criminals with hearts of tarnished silver. :P That being said...There could be some fun plot hooks in letting the PC play an investor.
...fair point.
Still, if you want extra detail, I'd ignore the whole 2d6x10% sell off deal and move to Fencing Gear. Keep the base of 30% and just alter the extended test to (10, 1 month). And, just like fencing gear, a glitch attracts attention from unwanted parties, providing some of the plot hooks involved. Hell, if you want just a little more detail, such as the PC actually takes runs to try and tip stock prices a little, award them bonus dice on the roll equal to the amount of karma awarded for the adventure.
Anyway, that's my ¥2.
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Tarnished silver hearts? Do you know what silver goes for on the open market? Forget organlegging, silver heart harvesting would pay for bullets, soyza, and beer!!!
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Tarnished silver hearts? Do you know what silver goes for on the open market? Forget organlegging, silver heart harvesting would pay for bullets, soyza, and beer!!!
Hmm, I know I'm getting side-tracked here but let's do the math.
The average human heart weighs 10-12 ounces (approximately 283.5-340.2 grams) for males and 8-10 ounces (approximately 226.8-283.5 grams) for females. Human flesh has a specific gravity of 1.4 while silver has a specific gravity of aproximately 10.5 (10.49, actually, so close enough). Assuming the upper end female/lower end male heart, that gives us approximately 2,126 grams of silver. Assuming that this counts as a raw reagent, a single "unit" of raw metal is 10 KILOGRAMS (Okay, I had to go back to Grimoire for that one, but still). So, it's only about ¥65 per heart. As a side note, heart of Gold goes for about ¥3,900, proving that having a strong moral center is only worth so much in the sixth world. For those who are curious, using Refined Reagents as a guide, gold goes for about ¥115 an ounce.
Now, stop playing the pedant (cue hypocrisy alert) and allow me a little artistic license, will you please? :P
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I need to see your artistic license and registration, as well as your union card. :P
Which brings us back to the business of doing business. ;D